page_title: Museo Nazionale di San Marco
section_title: The building
hierarchical_section_title: Museo Nazionale di San Marco / The building
caption_attribution_description: San Marco, Florenz
context_page_description: Museo Nazionale di San Marco is an art museum housed in the monumental section of the medieval Dominican friary dedicated to St Mark, situated on the present-day Piazza San Marco, in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.
  The museum, a masterpiece in its own right by the fifteenth-century architect Michelozzo, is a building of very first historical importance for the city and contains the most extensive collection in the world of the works of Fra Angelico, who spent several years of his life there as a member of the Dominican community. The works are both paintings on wood and frescoes. The museum also contains other works by artists such as Fra Bartolomeo, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Alesso Baldovinetti, Jacopo Vignali, Bernardino Poccetti and Giovanni Antonio Sogliani.
  San Marco is known as the seat of Girolamo Savonarola's discourses during his short spiritual rule in Florence in the late 15th century.
context_section_description: The Museum is situated in the oldest part of the monastery occupying about half the total space. The building has expanded over time, now taking up a whole block, and part of it is still occupied by friars today. The oldest section of the building, built over the medieval Sylvestrian monastery, was constructed by the architect Michelozzo at the specific request of Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici and his expense, to house the reformed Dominicans of Fiesole, an order at that time led by Antonino Pierozzi. Over about ten years (1436-1446) Michelozzo completed  an extremely modern and functional monasterial building project which contributed to the glorification of Medicean patronage. Michelozzo made use of the pre-existent wall structures of the Sylvestrian monastery complex which date back to the end of 13th century. 
  Michelozzo ably linked together the ground floor rooms around a harmoniously-proportionated cloister and raised the levels of these buildings to create the dormitories on the first floor with a large number of cells to suit an expanding monastery.
caption: Sant'Antonino Cloister
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